Having designed several scenarios, I am still puzzling over the question of, "How Many admin points should be assigned to each side?" What are your thoughts on how to answer this question? What have you seen in your own game play taht can provide insights to answering this question? What number makes the challenge? What number does not? What number do you think sets the right conditions for deciding between this or that choice--and then paying for the "wrong" decision, or reaping the benefits from making the "right" decision?

With the caveat that assigning APs to a small scenario “depends on the situation”, I think that there could be at least two schools of thought on the subject. I’d call one the “Fair share” approach and the other the “Managing Scarce Resources” approach. The idea that either approach could be the correct approach--depending on the situation--is stipulated.

In the "Fair Share" approach, you take whatever the weekly allocation is for each side using a campaign scenario that begins in the same year as your small scenario. Then determine the percentage of the front line that your scenario occupies. So if your scenario is about 50% of the front then you allocate to your scenario about 50% of the APs available in the campaign game.

One off-shoot of the Fair Share regime is the idea of main effort versus supporting effort. If it can be determined from the historical record that the “only show in town” happened to be in the area represented by your scenario then it is logical to assume that the sector represented in your scenario should/would/could receive more than its “fair share”. Likewise, if the sector represented by your scenario was a backwater to other areas, then maybe it should receive less than its “fair share” of APs.

In the "Managing Scarce Resources" approach, maybe you don’t even get close to a “fair share”. Maybe you get some number of APs—way less than optimal, way less than the “fair share”—that forces the player to make some hard decisions about the use of a small number of APs during the scenario.

So...On Admin Points? How Many? And remember, I'm talking about small scenarios here. What do you think about how many the "how many" should be?

My first suggestion would be to look at the campaign games to get an idea of what they are set at. So a reasonable starting point would be that amount scaled down to the size of your scenario. For example, if you were doing a scenario covering Army Group Center during the summer of 1942, I would look at the 1942 Campaign's AP starting points. I would estimate that Army Group South is going to be allocated at least half of those starting APs/Per turn because it was the main effort so that would leave AGN and AGC to split the remainder so I would go with Army Group Center's starting APs and Per APs at 25% of the 1942 Campaign's as a start point.

I like to keep starting APs low so that a player can't just dump all of his lower rated leaders and replace them and make massive adjustments to support units in the first turn. If you want the player to do this, then you need a higher amount of APs. Another considerations are if you have a large portion of the frontline in static mode. Do you want the players to be able to re-activate those fronts quickly or over time? Finally, with high APs for the Soviets, it can also allow him to form up many Corps sized units.